Swansea City manager Paul Clement has confirmed that midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson has been left out of his squad to face Southampton this weekend.
The Welsh side have been in talks with Everton over the sale of the 27-year-old for some weeks, with a transfer fee in the region of £40m to £50m thought to be on the table.
Toffees manager Ronald Koeman admitted at the weekend that the two sides were "close" to an agreement, while Clement previously claimed that he was prepared to play Sigurdsson if necessary.
With talks still ongoing however, Clement has now decided not to include the Iceland international in his travelling squad for the opening match of the new Premier League season.
"The latest is that there is no deal that has been done with any club, talks are ongoing and I'm speaking to our chairman and owners every day but there is no update," he told reporters this afternoon.
"What is going on is not abnormal, you get a lot of situations like this when you have a player that you want and is contracted for a number of years but there is another club or another clubs that want him. It has happened in the past when players from here have gone to different clubs.
"We have a valuation, the other club has a valuation and we have not met. The way it is going there needs to be a compromise on both sides, normally when both deals are done it is a win win for both sides."
Sigurdsson scored nine goals and set up 13 more last season to help the Welsh side avoid relegation in the final few weeks of the season.
Neil Wilkes
